Never touched
by javajive
Summary: -"Why now? Why after all these years did you just decide to blow poor Wayne up? He come knocking on your door late at night?" - "He never touched me." - Takes place in S3 - about Kate "jumping" Sawyer, not staying the night... -one shot-


_I know I spend an inanely amount of time pondering what the heck is wrong with Kate. So here is a little piece set around S3, Kate jumping Sawyer – and what she told the Marshal as he asked her about the killing of Wayne. _

_._

Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it is mine.

* * *

**Never touched**

* * *

_" Why now? Why after all these years did you just decide to blow poor Wayne up? He come knocking on your door late at night?" _

_"He never touched me."_

* * *

He looks up at her, confusion written all over his face. And she wishes she knew what's wrong with her -or how to fix it. Maybe Jack knows - but he isn't here now.

"What my doorbell busted again? What the hell are you doing? "

She approaches him quicker than she can think. Doesn't want to think. Wants to feel.

_Something._

"Shut up and don't talk. " She launches herself down, lips against his. He responds as she knew he would, sliding his mouth open. His stubble scratching her skin. And then he pushes her away, holding her at a distance. Where he can see her.

"You crying?" His tone; accusing.

_He can't see this. _How ugly she is.

"I said shut up"

She yanks at his clothes, tears at her own. Anger. Always the anger. Must make it go away. Can't undress fast enough.

"You got it." He says. Same stunned voice.

He helps her, ineptly tugging her trousers down, shoving her top up, like a nervous teenage boy. A curious contradiction to the experienced man she knows him to be. Her aggressiveness unnerving him.

All that she wants is to mean something. _Be somebody._ And there, for a millisecond, as he looks up at her, stupidly vulnerable, mouth half open. In that moment just before letting go – she finds it. His breath sweet on her face.

But she can only stay as long. As long as it takes her to get down from her high. She is a broken piece of crap. Nobody. She can't let him see who she is. That there is nothing under this shell. Nothing but ugliness inside. And he can't fix it either.

_She can't stay. _

He is beautiful.

So beautiful her heart skips a beat at the sight of him there in his makeshift bed.

And if beauty was enough, she might have fallen in love with him. Might have.

If she were a different kind of girl. If she'd been able to - she could have loved him.

* * *

Only. She is all wrong. None of the parts fitting. Something in her is missing. A chip of some sort, a programme, a channel. Hell, she doesn't know _what _- but as cliché as it might seem – she blames her mother. Every day and then some.

She hadn't known any different at first, and maybe Sam had compensated for it during the early years, but later when he left she'd come to an unspeakable conclusion. _Her mother didn't love her. _Didn't even like her.

Maybe she was slow catching on. Maybe she hadn't wanted to see it. All the signs had been there – all of her life. She was about to turn fifteen. That's when she'd finally made herself pronounce those words quietly in her mind. Placing them side by side, awkwardly stringing them together;_ she - doesn't - love - me._

It was like putting the last bit of a 1000 piece puzzle down, finding it fitting perfectly, sliding into place. She'd felt nothing at first. Numbness. _Then came the anger. _

A mother is supposed to.

_Supposed to what Katie?_

She'd ripped her scruffy old duffel jacket off the hook in the hallway, and ridden her too small bike down the street to Tom's place. Turned the lock on his door behind her - shredding every piece of clothing in a frenzy, throwing them on his floor. _Furious_. Tom, sitting on his bed. His eyes round and alarmed. And that afternoon, fumbling under his batman sheets, scared to death that his mom would walk in on them, she'd lost her virginity. Tom had regretted it afterwards - immediately. Fretted about the blood on his sheets and almost cried at the thought of her getting pregnant. She had not been sorry. Not at all. She'd felt nothing afterwards.

_She'd just felt numb._

She'd sat on his carpet watching him – too hot. Hugging her knees, fully dressed in her jeans and her thick jacket again, the stickiness and the unfamiliar soreness between her thighs.

_So - that was it._

Tom was her friend. He loved her. At least he loved her.

He'd whispered it in her ear as he entered her clumsily. First time for him too – he'd wanted it to be special, he'd said. He wasn't ready. But she'd pulled him down, thin hard girl hands hooked behind his neck, forcing his mouth to meet hers, teeth clashing into his.

He was too young. His cheeks still soft and downy, his voice just broken, a newfound manly voice that she didn't quite know yet. A voice he didn't really own either. Too young to see the desperation. Too young to see that he was being used. Because she knew what she was doing. Young as she was, she used the only thing she knew. Her beauty. To earn his love.

In the beginning when Wayne had moved in with them. She'd not given him much thought – he was a grown up man – someone to respect and answer _'yes sir' _to. But then, slowly it changed, the attention he'd paid her – she wasn't accustomed to it. He'd made her feel like she was visible. Like she was someone. _A person_. Later, he'd fight with her mother, even hit her sometimes and as she lay in her bedroom; she would cringe at the obscene sound of an open handed slap against her mother's skin. Glad that it wasn't her. Secretly thinking that maybe her mother deserved it. Maybe she'd been stupid – just like Wayne said.

_You stupid cow._

She'd thought that she was different. Wayne would tell her that. Call her his special girl. _Good girl. _He'd call her_ beautiful._ She'd giggled at that, covered her too big teeth with her hand, not daring to meet his eyes. Her freckles and skinny legs with scabs on. It had seemed impossible at first.

_Her. Beautiful._

It was such a weird notion. She couldn't wrap her mind around it. Her mother had never once said it. She'd said many other things. Harsh, hard words that would bite into Kate and corrode her from the inside. Unloved. Unlovable. To her mother, Kate was nothing to be happy about. An accident. A burden. Someone who she would have been better off without.

_You ruined my life._

The words never spoken but always there, hanging between them, mother and daughter, like an invisible umbilical cord.

_You were not meant to be._

Her mother would never let her forget it.

* * *

Later. When the bad stuff started. When it changed, so slowly, so quietly she didn't even know how to say no, before it was too late.

She'd thought that she'd deserved it. She had basked in his attention. His offhanded compliments – she had drunk them in. He was only being kind. Her gait had changed under his gaze. Her beauty budding under his appreciative eyes.

And then when it happened. So sneakily, so slowly she didn't even notice when they crossed the line. Didn't know where that line was drawn. Stupid from his flattery, and his priming, she had missed the turn where she could still have said no. Where she could still have kept something of herself. Before he took it all.

_Took her. Stole her._

It was her fault. She'd seen it in her mother's eyes. The one time she'd tried to tell her. She'd seen it in Diane's eyes. Hatred, and – jealousy. _Jealousy of her._ And she'd thought that it had made perfect sense. She'd caused it herself. Brought it on herself. She _had_ enjoyed Wayne's attention. She'd felt special. And this was the price to pay. Only – now it was the '_you're a looker, you're beasutiful_' that ate her up. Left her an empty ugly shell. She couldn't even hate him. She hadn't ever been able to say _'no'_.

Could only hate herself.

_Her fault. _

And she told herself;_ he never touched me._

Told it so many times, over and over again, trying to obliterate her own guilt, her disgusting willingness to be led. Her never saying _'no'._ She told the lie until it almost stuck.

_Almost._

* * *

The shame of it. To find out that he is part of her.

_He never touched me. _How she'd convinced herself of this truth. It _had _to be the truth. The other thing – too horrible – too disgusting to live with.

She'd thought that if he didn't exist. The shame wouldn't exist. Her lie would become the truth and she'd be free. She'd erase him. She'd make believe he never existed, his voice, his eyes, his fingers. _Not really_. She'd show her mother that she'd never wanted him. Never wanted him for _that._ So that she might stop resenting her – stop hating her. Maybe love her.

_She'd been a fool._

Her mother had turned her in.

* * *

And now. This man. This beautiful man.

If she'd known how to – she'd have loved him. Given herself to him, every last bit of the splintered empty shell. She'd have grown a new heart too – if she were able to. She knows this is as close to love that she'll ever get.

She dreams of him, limbs entangled, entwined. Skin on skin. Stomach taut in a hard knot. And then – the letting go. Trusting him. Giving in. But it's never like that.

_Never._

His arm heavy across her chest. Too heavy. His skin that sticks to her. The smell of sex in the tent. And she panics. Like she always does.

_Can't breathe._

While he was inside of her, perhaps frustrated with her rhythm, the slow cadence of her movements, he had grappled with her - his hands around her buttocks trying to flip them around. And she had fought, desperately, frantically trying to stay on top. _She can't_. Has to stay in control, has to be able to bolt from him at every moment. Never safe. The familiar panic. It's part of her. The feeling of suffocating under his weight. She can't. So she had fought, and he mistook her distraught resistance for passion, moaning loader in her mouth.

Now, his breathing tells her that he is fast asleep. She edges herself away from him, out of his grip. _Too much man_. His hard chest against her back, the firm hold around her breasts. She can't do this. Too close. Too much. Like her whole body is covered by nerve endings instead of skin, to fragile, feeling everything too acutely.

She doesn't do intimacy. She can fake it. For a while, only for a little while.

She imagines Jack and Juliet. Thinks of a Juliet that doesn't crumble from the closeness. Doesn't panic at a too tight embrace, doesn't fall apart at a forceful kiss.

_But she does. She does..._

As she lifts his arm off her he stirs and she turns the liberating herself, freeing herself into a pretended caress. Stroking his suntanned arm up and down its length, feeling the little hairs under her fingers. Wanting to cry.

_But not going to._

"Hey, where you going?" His sleepy face. Beautiful. And she regrets leaving – though she can't do anything different. Doesn't know how to.

"I can't sleep if I'm not in my own tent."

"Fine, let's go to your tent."

_Can't. No_. She can't sleep next to him. Can't give into that. Loose control.

"Erm... its nothing personal, its just... old habits, you know? "

"Fine, scram!"

He shoves her off his bed, turning it into a joke and she returns the favor. Thankful to him for letting her off this easily. She laughs.

"You want me to walk you home? "He asks.

"Its five tents I think I'll make it."

"Sure? I gotta' pee anyway."

"That is so romantic." She grins at him. Hates herself and her weakness. How she will give into her urges. But the moment it is over – it will seem unbearable.

She is nothing. She can't even sleep with a beautiful man next to her. Just a piece of crap. Her mother was right about her. _She is nothing. _

So as she lies down in her own tent. She repeats over and over again. Willing it to be true.

_Never touched. Me._


End file.
